Jamie Beckett

Plan C is the last resort: If I determine the weather is below minimums, I stay put. This is the plan many pilots don’t even consider. Maybe because it feels like a failure. They fear others will think them less than a real pilot.

Logic suggests there’s a really great airport restaurant out there or a hangar filled with treasures an aviation nut like me would enjoy seeing. Perhaps there is town along my route that boasts of having the World’s Largest Ball of Yarn or the best BBQ on the planet. I honestly don’t know — but you might. That’s where the magic happens, when locals share the pride of their little corner of the world with travelers passing through.

How could I have known Bob Hoover and I would walk along a wooded path chatting casually like old friends? Or that I would literally bump into Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman while prowling the hangars of a local airport?

If we set our personal expectations at perfection, we’re really working against our own best interests. The effort to give a perfect performance becomes counter-productive. This may transform a challenging goal into an impossible dream.

What if your significant other, your child, or your best friend found they’d been gifted with an opportunity to fly?

All of us who fly have been verbally battered by those who are too constrained in their own thinking to see a bigger, better life for themselves.

It’s time to do away with the preconceived notion of not being able to solve our own problems.